John Lenahan - Prince of Hazel and Oak

‘Why would I call an island? Do you think it would come?’

He cackled and walked over to where our bags were piled together and started looking through them. Turlow ran over and stuck his Banshee blade in his face. ‘Leave our possessions alone,’ he demanded.

The stranger simply ignored him and continued to look through our stuff. ‘Why? If you plan on sailing to Red Eel Island in that boat, you won’t be needing your things and it will be easier for me to scavenge them here, than when they are on the bottom of the ocean.’

‘Leave our bags alone,’ Turlow repeated, poking the scavenger with his Banshee blade.

The stranger stopped. ‘No matter, I’ll come back and take what I want when you are dead. I’m off home now; I know when I am not welcome. Thank you for the dance.’ He stopped with a faraway look and said, ‘It has been a long time since I have danced.’

‘Where is home?’ Araf asked. As I have said, when Araf speaks people listen. Even though our stranger had only just met the taciturn Imp it worked on him too.

He turned and said, ‘Red Eel Island. If you had been nicer I would have given you all a trip in my boat.’ Then he ran naked into the black night.

I turned to the others. They all had their mouths open. I pointed to the spot in the darkness that our visitor had disappeared into. ‘My agent, ladies and gentlemen.’ That got a chuckle from Brendan. As I have said, it was good to have him around.

‘Who was that?’ Brendan asked the night.

‘What was that?’ Tuan replied.

‘Whoever it was, I think we should keep watch tonight,’ Turlow said. ‘I will take first shift.’

I didn’t argue. I got my stuff off my drying rack and within minutes I was inside my warm dry sleeping roll. Brendan followed me. As he got into bed I asked him, ‘What did you think of insane guy?’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I think he was crazy all right but I wouldn’t say he was insane.’

I laughed. ‘You said that about me once if I recall.’

‘And I was right,’ Brendan said. ‘I got a feeling that our dancer tonight tried a little too hard to be crazy. Saying that, he did say one thing that I agreed with.’

‘What was that?’

‘We really are going to drown in that dinghy.’

I was last up the next morning. Tuan was still working on the boat. Every time he got the skin stretched over part of the frame on one side, the other side would pop out. Araf was off scavenging for driftwood, Brendan was cooking breakfast and Turlow was tending to the horses. I felt a bit guilty doing nothing so I grabbed a brush and joined the Banshee. Since Turlow was brushing Acorn I started working on his horse.

‘You know,’ I said, ‘I don’t know your horse’s name.’

‘Banshees do not name their horses.’

‘Why not?’

‘It makes it easier in case you have to eat them.’

‘Oh, don’t listen to him,’ I said, covering the mount’s ears. ‘I won’t let him eat you and I’m going to give you a name. I dub thee – Fluffy. There, no one will eat a horse called Fluffy.’

‘You are a strange man, Conor of Duir.’

‘But loveable, don’t ya think?’

Brendan called us to breakfast. Araf was sitting by the fire examining a piece of wood. He didn’t seem to notice me when I said goodorning.

‘You OK, big guy?’

‘You,’ he said.

‘Me? What me?’

He still didn’t look up. ‘No, you.’

‘Who you? Me? Who’s on first?’

He finally looked at me with an exasperated face that I usually reserve for my closer relatives. ‘The wood,’ he said, holding up the branch in his hand. ‘It’s yew wood.’

‘Oh, yew who.’ I shrugged. ‘So?’

‘Most of the wood in that driftwood pile is yew.’ Araf handed me the piece that was in his hand. ‘And look.’

I saw it right away. I didn’t need to be a forensics expert to see that plainly there were axe marks in the bark. ‘This ain’t wood from the Yewlands I’ve been in,’ I said. ‘There is no way you could chop down one of those babies. You’d be dead by the end of the backswing.’

Araf nodded in agreement.

‘Could they have come from another island?’

‘Conor, today I am going to leave the shores of The Land in a boat. It will be the first time in my life.’

‘It will probably be your last – have you seen the boat?’

I got that look again. ‘What I mean to say is, I have no idea what is beyond the beaches of Tir na Nog.’

‘It is ready,’ Tuan said, trudging back to the fire. ‘And I am ready for one last meal and then we can go.’

‘One last meal?’ I said. ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

‘No, no, not one last meal. One meal before we-’

‘Drown?’

‘Faerie,’ Turlow said, addressing me, ‘has anyone ever told you that your attempts at humour are often annoying?’

‘Yes, often.’

We ate in silence. Fish for breakfast isn’t my idea of a perfect last meal but I couldn’t see a waffle house anywhere nearby. The morning mist was clearing with a not too chilling offshore breeze. As we ate, a dark shape became visible out to sea – Red Eel Isle. It didn’t look too far but I’d had a little experience sailing. Once Dad and I went to the New Jersey shore with a school friend, Dad refused to step into a boat, but I loved it. I remembered that on the water things were usually further away than they looked.

We decided that the less weight we carried on the boat the better. Araf dug a hole in the sand and we wrapped what we weren’t going to bring in blankets and buried them in the dune. Tuan placed the athru that was hanging around his neck into his mouth and whispered to the horses.

‘What did you tell them?’ I asked.

‘I told them to wait here for as long as they could forage and if we don’t return then to make their way back to the Pinelnds.’

I gave Acorn a rough rub on the nose the way he likes and said, ‘You take good care of yourself, ya hear.’ I swear he glanced over my shoulder to the boat and then stared at me with eyes that said, ‘I’m not the one you should be worried about.’

Araf threw a disc into the fire and it went out fast, like somebody had just put a glass dome over it. Then he reached into the ash and charred wood and dug the fire coin out. I missed the heat of the fire instantly. I looked at the surf rolling onto the beach, the island far out at sea, I felt the cold salty breeze on my face and a shiver ran down my back. I whispered to myself, ‘Dad, you’d better appreciate this.’

I’m sure that everyone realised it was a bad idea as soon as we tried to get into the boat. This thing was made for a calm lake – it was not an ocean-going vessel. Tuan kept telling us to make sure we stepped on the big pieces of wood that made up the frame and to, under no circumstances, step on the skin or we’d put our feet through it. If that wasn’t unreassuring enough, the boat was as stable as a beach ball – Tuan tipped it trying to get in. We finally figured out that the only way to board the damn thing was in pairs, one on each side to balance out the weight. But when we did that the framework bent so badly that we were sure we were going to break it. Turlow and I were the last in and we had to wade into freezing-cold waist-deep water to get the thing off the sandy bottom. We were only seconds onboard when the first wave hit us. I wasn’t ready for it. I bounced around and hit the skin of the boat hard with my fist, but luckily I didn’t puncture it. The others grabbed oars and paddled. The ‘ship’ came with two oars and Araf this morning had fashioned another two out of driftwood.

We survived the next two breakers The surf hadn’t looked this rough from shore but now that we were on the water we were really getting tossed around. The fourth wave did us in. The bow raised like it had for the other waves but then it just kept going. It went straight up and tossed us out the stern. I had the tent on my back and when I hit the water it dragged me straight down. The water was so cold it only took a nanosecond to become numb all over – it was like a full body shot of novocaine. I untangled my backpack from my shoulders and then forced my way to the surface. I got my head above water just in time to get creamed by another wave that spun me underwater like I was in a washing machine. Then next time I reached the surface I spotted Brendan and Araf spluttering off to my left.